In the prior art, almost all vehicle interior lighting was viewed primarily as functional. This much light needed in this area that much in that area and instrumentation needed backlighting to be visible at night. Most vehicle cabs were equipped with dome and map lights for cab visibility, door lights for safe entry and exit, backlit instrument panels and controls, and maybe a lit vanity mirror and glove box. All purely functional, almost always from incandescent bulbs, almost always white, and except for instrument backlighting, most did not have adjustable intensity.
While the forgoing prior art vehicle interior lighting scheme was useful and effective for their functional purposes, the achieved lighting effects were seldom attractive. Over the last couple of years LED's (Light-Emitting Diodes) have made significant inroads into motor vehicle lighting systems. While initially the new LED lighting was for headlights and tail lights, LED's gradually found their way into vehicle interior lighting. New vehicles now use LED's rather extensively for passenger compartment general lighting, instrumentation lighting and warning lights.
LED's typically last longer than the vehicles they are installed in. Thus bulb replacement may become a thing of the past. In addition, LED's have reduced power consumption, which enables smaller, and thus cheaper, power wiring. The lower power consumption enables redirection of available electrical power to other devices and applications that are becoming increasingly common in today's motor vehicles.
However, many people find that LED's produce light that is too bright, harsh, and generally unappealing. Bright lights of LED's are particularly troublesome at night. While driving at night the use of bright compartment interior lighting either by a passenger or driver creates discomfort and poor night vision for the driver because of the reflection of the bright light from the windshield into the driver's eyes. This creates a dangerous condition, particularly during emergencies.
Therefore, vehicles having aesthetically improved interior lighting would be beneficial. Particularly useful would be LED vehicle interior lighting that can be adjusted in both intensity and color. Ideally such LED vehicle interior lighting would enable aesthetically attractive lighting schemes at relatively low cost and with easy driver adjustability. Preferably such LED vehicle interior lighting would provide numerous colors and would have highly configurable lighting intensities, and would improve driver safety by reducing excessive light reflections while driving at night.